


the edge of my affection

by blue-plums (arabesque05)



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2019-09-16 03:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16946493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabesque05/pseuds/blue-plums
Summary: naruto gets married with usual hyuuga sort of pageantry: village elders and foreign delegates and daimyo representatives all in attendance, until it becomes almost less about the wedding and more about state politics.





	the edge of my affection

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Bahasa Indonesia available: [the edge of my affection](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17000316) by [Shunou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shunou/pseuds/Shunou)



Naruto gets married with usual Hyuuga sort of pageantry: village elders and foreign delegates and daimyo representatives all in attendance, until it becomes almost less about the wedding and more about state politics. Pre-nuptial festivities stretch out for days. At the wedding banquet, well-wishers approach to toast the the newlywed couple; Naruto -- who is learning something about statesmanship -- returns their toasts in kind. At some point, he pulls Sakura aside and asks her if maybe his liver has died -- what would that feel like? Is it more a shooting pain or a throb? But he has two livers anyway, right? It’s fine?

“The fuck,” says Sakura and drags Naruto into a bathroom. She sticks a finger down his throat and presses until he gags, and then holds back his formal wedding clothes as he vomits into the toilet.

“This is not how I imagined weddings would go,” she says, a little later, lying in the bathtub, contemplating the ceiling meditatively. The Hyuuga have gold-leaf mosaics in their bathrooms -- of course they do, thinks Sakura. She wonders if the Uchiha do as well.

Naruto clutches at the toilet weakly, makes a noise like he wants to die, and says, “I want to die.”

“How did Jiraiya not teach you these things? One: don’t mix alcohol. Two: eat things before you start drinking like a fish. Three -–”

“Sakura-chan,” says Naruto piteously.

“Throw it all up,” says Sakura kindly. “You’ll feel better.” She climbs out of the tub, and smoothes her hair and dress, and puts her heels back on. “I’ll go find Hinata-chan,” she says.

She finds Sasuke first, sitting among the clan heads with such a total lack expression that Sakura wonders if he is imagining various ways to disembowel them. He picks at a wagashi. Some clan elders next to him chat about ... -- the word “demon” and “bastard” come floating from the table. Sakura frowns. She feels an itch in her knuckles.

“Oi,” she says, glaring.

Sasuke looks up first: at her frown and at her fist. “Sakura-chan,” he says suddenly: strange enough that Sakura pauses.

She eyes him questioningly. He stands up, and bows to the pale-eyed man a few seats to his left, and exchange a few quiet words. Then he rounds the table and goes to Sakura. “Don’t punch anyone,” he murmurs.

“You looked like you were five seconds away from setting them all on fire,” says Sakura pointedly.

“Yes,” agrees Sasuke.

He glances around the banquet hall. In his expression, there is something akin to despair. After a moment, he says, “Let’s elope.”

Sakura snorts. “Sre you proposing?”

“I called you ‘Sakura-chan’,” says Sasuke, dryly, still not looking at her.

“Yes, that was -- ….very strange,” says Sakura. She takes a look around the banquet hall as well. Most of these people, she’s never seen in her life. She says to Sasuke, “Naruto’s in the bathroom, throwing up.”

Sasuke says again, “Let’s elope.”

* * *

Sakura has every expectation of Naruto and Hinata being happy, once they move out of her father’s house: the way Hinata unhesitatingly reached for a face towel and cleaned Naruto’s mouth and flushed the toilet and helped him out into the hall -- there are probably marriages built on less tenderness. In a few years -- or weeks, even -- Naruto will laugh about this, his wedding where he drank himself sick and spent the last half-hour throwing up in his father-in-law’s gold-leaf mosaic’d bathroom. Already, he and Hinata share a speaking look when they talk about their wedding, like it is some shared joke between them.

Still, Sakura…Sakura has a somewhat different sense of humor.

* * *

“Let’s just meet near the bench,” says Sasuke some days later, waiting in front of the takoyaki stall. They had just enough change in their pockets to pool together enough money for one order. “You know the one.”

“Mm-hmm,” says Sakura. Their takoyaki finishes cooking -- Sakura steps forward to take the tray. She smiles at the stall vendor in thanks, and goes back to Sasuke, offering him a toothpick. They bend their heads over the six takoyaki, piping hot and giving off steam in the autumn air. The smell of octopus, and green onions in hot oil, wafts up deliciously. “Uwah,” says Sakura, delighted.

They finish the takoyaki in a few bites. Sasuke takes the paper tray and toothpicks and tosses them in a trash bin. They continue their walk.

“Anyway, what about the bench?” remembers Sakura.

“Oh.” Sasuke looks down. He smiles a little. “Let’s meet there. I’ll pack an overnight bag. You come tell me not to leave.”

Sakura narrows her eyes at him. “Will I?”

The smile gains a bit of tooth in one corner, mischievous. “Maybe you’ll cry a little bit,” he says. “Declare your undying love beautifully. Offer to follow me into hell.”

Sakura aims a kick at Sasuke’s ankles. “Go there by yourself.”

“No,” says Sasuke, reaching out and taking one of Sakura’s hands. She twists her wrist; he laces their fingers together, securely. “I don’t want to go anywhere by myself.”

Sakura looks up at him, his profile vivid against the blue sky: the strong brow, the straight nose, the sharp jawline. Sasuke’s hand is warm and strong and callused. The air smells like autumn leaves, a sweetness overlaying the still unarrived cold. “Hmm,” says Sakura, smiling; and each beat of her heart is  _yes, yes, yes, yes, yes._

He glances down at her upturned faced: and perhaps Sasuke’s ears are not exceptional, but his eyes are. He seems to recognize the answer in her expression. Briefly, Sasuke presses her hand. he says, “Stay close to me.”

“Yes,” says Sakura.

* * *

“Okay, but if I  _actually_  elope with you, Ino is going to skin me alive,” Sakura says. She puts down the medical journal that she hadn’t really been reading, and gives up all pretense, folding her arms on the dining table and resting her chin on them to watch Sasuke grout the kitchen tiles. The muscles in his back flex gorgeously. He doesn’t say anything.

Sakura laughs. “Are you scared of her?”

“No,” says Sasuke.

“On a scale of one to ten,” says Sakura.

“Zero,” says Sasuke.

“But actually,” says Sakura. Sasuke turns and makes a face at her over his shoulder: so, figures Sakura, about seven then.

“Are you scared of me?” asks Sakura, idly curious.

“Of course,” says Sasuke.

That is unexpected. Sakura sits up straighter. “Really?”

Sasuke doesn’t turn around. He says, “It’s a good thing. I’m never scared for you.”

_Oh_ , thinks Sakura. The amount of faith he had in her implied by that statement is staggering. 

It had been the opposite for her: she had been afraid for him, what he was doing to himself, burning himself so recklessly with the coal in his heart; but Sakura had never been afraid  _of_  Sasuke. She thinks about telling him this -- but then again, he probably knows. After all, he’s in their kitchen, his back turned, unguarded -- entrusted to her.

Sasuke adds, “Also: sometimes you get mad and I’m scared you’ll break a fountain or a garden or our house -–”

“I would  _not_ ,” protests Sakura. “Not a house! Not  _our_  house!”

* * *

A catfish lives in the hospital pond, long-whiskered and golden-tailed. Sometimes Sakura takes her lunch by the edge of the pond, sitting on her heels, occasionally flicking pieces of melon bread into the water. Sasuke joins her one day, as the grass is starting to turn yellow.

“How is your catfish friend?” asks Sasuke, crouching down beside her. His shoulder brushes hers.

“I yet live at the edge of his affection,” sighs Sakura.

“You can’t run away with him when you’re running away with me,” he reminds her.

“My catfish friend has such beautiful whiskers, though,” says Sakura, eyes twinkling. She turns her head to look at him, and he turns to look at her, and they smile at each other -- maybe a little stupidly, two young people in love. Sakura offers the rest of her melon bread to Sasuke. He takes it and eats quietly for several moments.

When he finishes, he says, “Come meet my parents tomorrow.”

* * *

Sakura knows how nicely Sasuke cleans up: she  _knows_ , and yet -- seeing him in a suit, all neat, dark lines, there is something ridiculous about it. “How are you even fair?” she asks, irked.

He looks at her, her hair pinned up, her spring flowered kimono, and says, “I like looking at you better.”

Sakura takes the hand he offers, helping her down the steps outside the house. They stop on the sidewalk for a moment. She reaches up and straightens his tie and tells him, “I know you meant that as a compliment, but mostly it came off creepy.”

“A little bit,” agrees Sasuke.

They start walking. The evening settles, streaking the western horizon in orange and violet. A breeze picks up, tree leaves rustling like a hundred murmuring voices.

“Don’t you think this kimono is out of season?” asks Sakura.

“Aren’t you out of season?” asks Sasuke dryly. “Didn’t your parents ever worry about that, Sakura of the spring?”

Sakura cheerfully replies with something equally needling about  _his_  name, shinobi cliche as it is, and they spend a happy few minutes engaged in increasingly creative and offensive puns. They pass the watchtower, and then the village walls. Sasuke leads her deeper into the forest, where the trees become taller, with such thick trunks that sakura suspects they might have been growing there since before Konoha even. The ground is soft with moss. Overhead, the trees look ablaze in the sunset, a riot of crimson and yellow leaves. They come to the entrance of a small shrine tucked among such fire, its stone steps worn with age.

Sasuke takes her hand in his. Quietly, he says, “They say Izanagi went into the underworld to retrieve his wife and sister Izanami, but could not. And when he returned, he washed himself in the river at Ahakihara and begat three children: Ameterasu from the left eye and Tsukuyomi from the right and Susanoo from the nose. Do you suppose he was crying?”

Around them, the night is quiet but for the sound of tree leaves. Sasuke looks down at their clasped hands, and there is something immeasurably sad in the set of his mouth.

“That kind of grief is the heritage of my family, Sakura. Grief is how we have survived and grown strong. I don’t -–…I don’t have anything else for you.” His eyes gleam reddish in the moonlight. He lets out a sigh like the draw of a rusty blade. “And yet,” he says. “And yet. I still want to be selfish; I still want you to stay close to me.”

“When i am old,” says Sakura. “Even then?”

“Yes,” says Sasuke. He says, with something of his old humor, “In all your seasons.”

“Well,” says Sakura. “We are doing better already then. Izanagi fled in terror when he beheld Izanami in the underworld, her beauty stricken, her appearance foul with maggots.” She takes both of his hands and holds them together. “Whatever your family was like, Sasuke-kun has a lot to give. You haven’t finished grouting the kitchen yet. I need you to do that. When Naruto becomes Hokage and  _unbearable_ , I need you to help me wrangle him. When the weather gets cold, I need you to keep my hands warm; and when I have early mornings at the hospital, I need you to put the coffee on; and when I am tired, I need you to kiss me better.”

Perhaps Sasuke smiles at that. Sakura can’t see in the dark; but he leans down and presses his lips against hers, softly, full of affection.

“Thank you,” he says, and she hears everything he meant by it.

They turn and go up the stairs. “Do you think our firstborn will be a girl, too?” asks Sakura.

“Yes,” says Sasuke. And he says, “I hope she takes after you.”

* * *

Some weeks later, Haruno Sakura marries Uchiha Sasuke in small ceremony with only family and close friends in attendance. The bride is lovely, and the groom handsome, and at the dinner banquet, one of the guests as a form of congratulations stands on his head in the punch bowl.

“Oh, Lee,” sighs Sakura.

Sasuke watches as Naruto follows lee into the punch bowl, to the chant of “Chug! Chug! Chug!” from InoShikaCho. “I don’t think the problem was with weddings after all,” he says pensively. “I think the problem is our friends.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> title and catfish from ‘your catfish friend’ by richard brautigan


End file.
